Patlabor is a gem in the trash heap of mecha shows. It sets itself apart by being human in a dehumanizing genre. Despite being a huge hit when it came out, it is now mostly forgotten, a true shame, but not surprising considering the state of anime today.
Patlabor was created by a team of artists known as Headgear, with the most notable members being Mamoru Oshii(Ghost in the Shell) and Masami Yuuki. Yuuki came up with the original concept in the early 80s, and Oshii directed the first OVA and the first two movies, which are an entirely different beast compared to the mostly lighthearted TV series, being much more serious, dark, and politically charged. While Oshii wrote some of the episodes of the show, his influence was more limited.
The core idea behind Patlabor was to refresh the mecha genre with realism. In the future of the 1990s, so called Labors are developed as construction robots for the Babylon Project, a giant dam in the bay of Tokyo against rising sea levels caused by global warming. As the use of Labors increases, criminals and terrorist also start to use them. Thus, Special Vehicles Section 2, SV2, is created, a Labor police force, to combat Labor crime with specialized patrol Labors, or Patlabors.
This setting is a product of the optimistic 80s, when Japan’s economy was booming. In Patlabor, there are mega construction projects everywhere in Tokyo, technology has advanced rapidly in some areas but has mostly stayed the same. It does not intrude on people’s lives, but is a net positive force. Peace rules, there is no forever war or alien invasion. The worst that might happen is a bombing, but even the terrorists are often in over their head and can be talked down. The city of Tokyo remains mostly unchanged from the real world.
At the end of some episodes, there even is a tag line: “This story is fiction, but in ten years, who knows?” Of course, in the year 2020 we know, such a future never arrived, we got the corporate dystopia of cyberpunk without any of the cool tech or aesthetic. The positive attitude about the future, coupled with glorious 80s animation and a soundtrack by the always excellent Kenji Kawai just ooze nostalgia and even a subtle melancholy.
Realism is everywhere in Patlabor. It takes the ridiculous premise of the mecha and says: If this technology had been developed in the real world, this is probably what it would have been like. The Labors are not flying killing machines shooting lasers and rockets, but devices more like a forklift or an excavator. They are fragile, clunky and only have a few hours of battery life. They leave base not through an underground launch tunnel, but get driven to their destination on the back of a large truck, which might also get stuck in traffic.
The tasks of SV2 often reflect the mundane realities of police work, sometimes they sit in the base for weeks waiting for something to happen, deal with budget limitations, or worry about collateral damage during missions(SV2 has become infamous for this).
However more striking than the realism of the setting, the show also puts realism in its characters, despite their eccentric nature. This starts with the excellent designs done by Akemi Takada, another Headgear member, whose characters have distinctive faces instead of distinctive hair colors, from the wide eyed Noa to the seemingly always half asleep Captain Goto.
They wear orange reflective vests because it’s the most safe in the urban and industrial environments they operate in, a far cry from the outlandish uniforms sometimes seen in anime, and the women even get to wear the same clothes as the men. In fact, these high visibility uniforms are also a political statement, they clearly separate SV2 from any sort of military, they are not warriors, they are civil servants. (If you believe this about today's police I leave up to you).
Patlabor boasts a fantastic cast of characters, they are the main focus of the series, much more so than the robots some of them pilot. All of them are exaggerated and eccentric, but never so dominated by their antics that they become unbelievable(except for Ota), nor do they have any outlandish powers. Noa’s pretty quirky but she’s not a hyperactive MPDG, she’s a great Labor pilot but nothing she does is outside the humanly possible. Hirmoi is kind of a recluse, but not a shut-in brooder.
It is this restraint and placidity combined with the willingness to go completely over the top in other areas that make this series something special. It makes these characters very relatable and it is immensely fun to watch them deal with some new crazy situation or each others personalities.
I rarely get really attached to characters in media but you spend so much time with these people that you get to know them very well. It’s like spending time with your buddies at work, and the entire series is so good-natured that really every single episode put a smile on my face and made my mood better.
Noa is the main character, and embodies the show’s spirit the most: quirky, optimistic and easy going. She is often the center of action and the most fun to watch because of her demeanor and plucky nature. She loves Labors and treats hers like a favorite pet, calling it Alphonse, sometimes refusing to carry out orders for fear that it might break or even get dirty. She also becomes depressed when there is talk of replacing SV2’s labors, including her Alphonse, with a different model. Nobody else on the team really understands that, to them a machine is just a machine. This is kind of a precursor to the themes Oshii would discuss a few years later in Ghost in the Shell.
Also, she really dislikes firing her weapon and her hesitation sometimes leads to bigger problems, this might be incomprehensible to American viewers. While this hesitation stems in part from the fact that she doesn’t want to damage precious Labors, it is also her principle, an ideal of what a good, deescalating police officer should act like. In her own words from Episode 4 of the New Files OVA, in response to Kanuka wildly firing her Patlabor’s revolver at the military Griffin Labor occupied by an out of control child: “This isn’t America! You can’t do that here!”
In general this show has extremely good female representation, with a variety of woman often being more competent at their job then the men. Kanuka Clancy is a hyper competent police officer from the NYPD send to Japan to train with Labors first hand, she has a no-nonsense attitude about everything. Sadly, halfway through the series she gets replaced with Kumagami who also has her moments but is a bit dull compared to the rest of the cast.
Goto, the captain of SV2, is probably the most noteworthy character. Nothing makes him loose his laid-back attitude, he seems nice and even simple, however under the surface he is a master manipulator, well informed of important events and extremely clever. He employs unconventional methods and also bends the rules whenever he sees fit, which leads to many highly entertaining situations.
He was likely exiled to SV2 for political reasons, and now has to spend his time overqualified for this often extremely boring job, which consists of sitting in his office and drinking copious amounts of tea. This is a not so subtle critique of politicians and the top brass, who never look good in Patlabor. However, Goto also enjoys the comradely atmosphere of the SV2, and certainly cares about his subordinates.
The last character definitely worth talking about is Ota. The series itself most aptly describes him as a psycho cop, his first solution to really any problem is shooting his gun and violence. This often makes the problem worse and leads to his Labor being busted up. While he is responsible for many hilarious scenes, he is a bit of a wart in this cast. Now I have no trouble believing such a guy to be a police officer, much worse people have become policemen in real life, and SV2 has a reputation for taking in the stragglers. However his antics can become grating and repetitive. With him some more levity would have been nice. Also, his violent methods, sometimes through random chance, succeed more often than they really should. Part of that’s comedy of course, but it also seems to portrait police brutality as some viable alternative.
While these character’s quirks are exaggerated, sometimes to an absurd level, they are realistic in the sense that these are just adults who do their mundane day to day job like any civil servant, it’s just that the job involves giant robots. This is what truly sets these characters apart from standard mecha fare, they are not larger than life, they have no troubled past, they don’t go through some grand development or arc, and they’re not angsty teenagers.
This show has some overarching plot threads, but most episodes are dedicated to some new adventure, which can reach from relatively serious police procedure to completely absurd situations and parody, with great versatility in the stories being told. Sometimes, Labors are not featured at all.
In contrast to the realism of the setting, the episodes can go all out in terms of ridiculousness, and sometimes feature ghosts or monsters. Often, a completely mundane situation like ordering food from a restaurant or filing an insurance claim(there is really an episode about that) is escalated to an hilarious degree. It is the hyper realistic combined with the hyper unrealistic.
Patlabor has a fantastic sense of humor, again the series shows great versatility, from the wacky plots to the slapstick, visual gags and the banter of the characters. There are none of the more unfortunate sides of Anime humor like fan service. It doesn’t take itself very seriously, but it never becomes farcical or obnoxious, because it also knows when to be silent.
Some episodes are parody of other media but never rely solely on reference. A few episodes even tap into the realm of social satire, most noteworthy “The Seven Days of Fire”, a satire of the Japanese student movement, written by Oshii. He would later become famous for serious Sci-Fi movies like Ghost in the Shell, but his involvement in this series shows that he is just as great a writer of comedy.
The show also has some quiet and somber character moments which work just as well and it even pulls quiet an effective ending for a show with so little overarching narrative. The series can pack an emotional punch, it just chooses to do so very rarely.
Now I still prefer the movies, the TV series just doesn’t come close in terms of directing, production value, or thematic depth. For example the Griffin arc in the show I had some issues with, because it’s the closest it gets to being a standard mecha show, and it also features an annoying prodigy kid character. The writing in some of the more serious episodes sometimes had a bit to many plot conveniences for my taste.
But the show’s core idea, portraying ordinary people in a world of ordinary mechas, is a great success and still feels fresh today. This is obviously worth watching for its characters and humor. It’s a delightful time capsule back from anime’s golden age, when such things were still possible.
